(Photo: Brendan O’Keefe/WCSN)
Arizona State baseball hit a wall on Friday night.
After the offense scored a whopping 31 runs in their weekend set against Rhode Island, the torrid Sun Devils only tallied two runs in Friday night’s series opener against California. That’s the fewest runs ASU had scored since April 21, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that they are now 1-6 in games where they score two or fewer.
On Saturday, it looked like much of the same early on, but the Sun Devils powered through late thanks to yet another strong performance on the mound from redshirt junior left-handed pitcher Justin Fall and some late life from the offense in a 6-3 win.
The Golden Bears made Fall work to get out of the first, as the lefty tossed 23 pitches in the opening frame. California didn’t go empty-handed either, senior second baseman Darren Baker, who ranks second in the Pac-12 in stolen bases, was picked off trying to steal second by Fall but an errant throw into left field by freshman first baseman Jack Moss allowed a runner to score from third.
The Golden Bears as a team have stolen 44 bases this season, only behind Washington who leads the conference.
Baker came around to score in the third as well on an infield single from sophomore center fielder Nathan Manning.
The Sun Devils cracked the hit column and scoreboard in the fourth when redshirt freshman second baseman Sean McLain blasted his sixth home run of the season to make it 2-1 California.
The Golden Bears once again answered in the bottom half of the inning when junior catcher Cole Elvis doubled down the right field line to bring home a run.
ASU struggled to muster anything for the next few innings against California junior starter Sean Sullivan, who ranked tenth in the Pac-12 in ERA at 3.48 entering the day. Sullivan went 7.2 innings and struck out five but ran into trouble in the seventh.
Freshman utility man Ethan Long continued his reign of dominance at the plate by belting his team-leading eleventh homer to tie the game at three. He added another two-run shot in the ninth which proved to be the dagger.
Long managed to tie, and surpass former Sun Devil outfielder Barry Bonds for second on the ASU freshman home run list with 12. In his last eight games, he’s hit nine homers while tagging two in three of those contests.
Redshirt junior shortstop Drew Swift added a run in the eighth on a double, and that was all the run support needed to secure the victory.
Fall struggled early with command and found himself in jams that he fought hard to work out of, but he miraculously managed to go the distance and pitch a complete game in the win. After surrendering seven hits and four walks through the first five innings, Fall retired the final 14 men he faced.
He struck out five hitters and gave up two earned runs overall on a career-high 133 pitches. The outing is also the longest by an ASU starter this season.
The win gives the Sun Devils a chance to win the series on Sunday before a string of three conference matchups to end the regular season.
